I get it, he is out of his mind. . . one cannot make something out of nothing. In terms of the sacred scriptures; brian is out of touch. in his mind he is the authority, you are the authority; there is no objective reality; you are reality. HUH Excuse ME! why read the bible, just read brian and eugene peterson. . .QUACK QUACK QUACK!

My church (like many churches I think) is realizing that we're not attracting a lot of 20s - 30s. Our theory is that the modern church is not very relevant to postmodern generations. Like you, I've grown up hearing that postmodernism is BAD. But what Brian Mclaren (I've read A New Kind of Christian before) & others like him seem to be saying is that the church has become entrenched in modernism and in order to survive & be relevant in the future, it needs to become postmoern. And that's not a bad thing - it brings out aspects of Christianity that are neglected by the modern church. (At least this is how it makes sense to me.) Which does seem like a contradiction: Christianity is about absolute truth and postmodernism (to be very simplistic) isn't. So everyone freaks out & thinks that postmodern Christians don't believe in absolute truth, and the truth of Jesus' death will get watered down and eventually ignored. I believe this isn't true though. I and everyone else I've heard on the subject still are absolutely committed to the truth of the gospel. I hope this is at least a little bit helpful! There are other authors on the subject like Leonard Sweet and Mike Yaconelli, and a website to look at is theooze.com.

well, i've just bought the mclaren book 'a generous orthodoxy.' (my library didn't have a copy so i was forced to drop $20 on it.)

so far, nothing is striking me as crazy (dad). his tone is tongue in cheek, a little snarky and self-aware - which may be why he freaks out some traditionalists and fundies (it's ironic and sarcastic!) - but nothing crazy. and i'm looking for it. really.

The whole idea of "emerging" I think, is to offer the idea that you don't join because you have all the answers; you are becoming something, and the movement is growing as well.

It's basically that modern institutions, like churches, are closed and final, they dictate. The idea of "emerging" is closer to the dynamic, moving, changing, growing metaphors Jesus used. "The kingdom of God is within you" etc, etc.

The "Quack quack quack" thing bothers me somewhat, firstly because McLaren is very much an advocate of reading and discussing biblical text. In fact, he doesn't really give directions to people who read his books at all. It's all about searching out the text for yourself.

And I'm not exactly sure what Eugene Peterson has done to warrant any criticism. He is also somewhat of a postmodernist who again, is open to multiple interpretations, not just his own.

Just a tangential observation: Where are the women in the Emerging Church movement? Where are the gay folks?

We talked about the Emerging Church over on Beliefnet awhile back, and many of us came away with the idea that it's sorta-kinda like conservative evangelicalism with genuflecting. We didn't get it either.